


fucking super soldiers

by esama



Series: Ironsicle [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comic Book Science, Cryogenics, Gen, Guilt, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sokovia Accords, Super Soldier Serum, Tony-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-10 10:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10435257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: Tony is found in Siberia.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【铁人中心】Fucking Super Sodiers／去他妈的超级士兵](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10577646) by [Oni_Miko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oni_Miko/pseuds/Oni_Miko)



> Unbetaed.

It was… unsettling to be back.

Siberia is colder than Steve remembered – colder and darker. It's winter now, though, and in Siberia you don't get that much light even during day time in December – and it's morning right now. Sun won't even _try_ to get up in few more hours.

There's a lot more snow now. It's piled up and over the silo doors, and it takes effort to find the entrance they'd taken – it's all covered in snow. Even with the right equipment and proper gear, it's chilly.

"Well, this place is welcoming," Natasha comments, as they eye the piles of snow between them and the way into the base

"Aren't they all," Steve answers, squeezing his hands into fists in his gloves and opening them again – squeeze, release. "I'll get the shovels."

"Ugh, house work. Wonderful – should've brought Clint after all, he excels at this stuff," Natasha complains half heartedly. Steve shakes his head, not really in mood for jokes, and instead jogs back to the helicopter. It's an excuse not to think, to concentrate onto the problem at hand.

He's kind of running out of excuses. Excuses and time.

Natasha accepts her shovel without a word and together get to it, shovelling the snow away from the entrance, clearing a path. Chances are they will have to carry a stretched through here later, so they make the path a little wide than is strictly speaking necessary. Idly, Steve wonders if Natasha is trying to buy little more time by the precision she puts into the shovelling. He knows he is.

Eventually, the way is clear. Reluctantly they strike their shovels into the bank of snow and Natasha goes to check the door. "Well," she says after moment of testing the keypad. "Power's out."

"Let me try," Steve says, and she steps away with a slight after-you-gesture. Taking a breath Steve braces his shoulder against the heavy metal door and pushes. And then pushes again, harder.

The metal shrieks and the hinges grind hard enough to vibrate – but the door opens.

Inside it's dark, and cold – though not quite as cold as outside.

"After you," Natasha says, taking out a flash light. Steve does the same and then, with a deep breath, plunges in.

Inside, the air is still and a little stale. There's a bit snow piled up by the door way, and ice crystals crawl up the walls. Steve looks at them, weirdly uneasy at how prettily they glitter on the spotlight of their flashlights, and then they move on, deeper into the facility.

"Looks like power is out for more than just the door," Natasha comments, idly testing every light switch they come across. "Did you happen to see what powers this place anyway?"

"Can't say I did," Steve says. He rakes the corridors with the flash light, hoping for some sign of… something better than what they're expecting. A sign of life, or departure, something. Anything other than this cold, dead nothingness.

The place is as empty as he remembers – and far colder.

"I think there was some heating here the last time we came here," Steve comments.

"There's definitely none now," Natasha muses, aiming her flashlight up. There are icicles hanging from the grating of an air vent. "So. I'd love to keep beating around the bush, but… we're here. Where did you leave him."

Steve takes a deep breath and then sighs. "This way," he says.

They encounter nothing that might give him hope, nothing that might… indicate the worst hadn't came to pass. The rooms they encounter are empty, the corridors vacant. Steve resolutely keeps himself from dragging his feet as they make their way up and to the platform where he'd last seen his shield, among other things.

The shield isn't there anymore.

And neither is Tony.

"He's not here," Steve whispers, almost stumbling over to the spot where he'd seen Tony last, leaning against the concrete struts. There, Steve had pinned him down – there he'd cracked his shield through the chest of the armour. Tony had been there, lying on the floor – he can remember it. He'd been alive. "He's not here."

Natasha crouches down, brushing a bit of frost aside and picking something from the floor. A shard of metal, hot rod red on one side. "He was here," she says, turning the shard in her gloved fingers and then peering around.

"He must've gotten away after all," Steve says, hope and old, almost reflexive bitterness warring.

"Or," Natasha says plainly, "He left the obviously empty, useless room in search of supplies. Like, say, a radio."

Yeah that makes sense. Steve closes his eyes. "Right – I think there's a control centre somewhere here."

"It's an old missile silo," Natasha says. "It probably has several."

She stands up again and turns to leave. Steve hesitates over the concrete struts for a moment, looking down. Then, shaking his head, he follows her.

Thankfully the control centre isn't hard to find. Natasha seems to know how to navigate in Russian missile launch sites, Steve thinks, but doesn't comment on it as they scan the dark room with their flash lights, looking over the old consoles, the tables, the chairs. There is radio there.

It's been thrown off the table and onto the floor.

Natasha crouches by it, idly flicking couple of switches. "I guess it didn't work," she says, when the radio remains completely silent.

"Yeah," Steve agrees, closing his eyes. He can almost imagine it, Tony standing where they were, desperately trying to get the radio to work… "Damn it," he murmurs and looks away.

It's weird, how hard-pressed the guilt is. It's rising slowly and sluggishly from under the more common bitterness and frustration – it's still easier to settle on those, than the guilt. Still it seems so much more likely that Tony got away – and then hid, working from behind the scenes to create the mess they're in now. Even when he knows, when he has all the reasonable doubt in the world… it is easier to put Tony on that pedestal.

T'Challa had said that it was a much more comfortable narrative to follow. He wasn't wrong.

They move on from the control centre in silence, looking for clues. It's increasingly eerie, to walk around in the dark place. There's no sounds there, not even a occasional water drip – everything's just frozen. Even the wind outside doesn't reach inward. It's like a grave.

God he hopes it's not a grave.

"Steve," Natasha says and flicks her flashlight up.

For a moment, Steve isn't entirely sure what he's seeing. On the corridor ahead of them, there are beds – no, hospital gurneys. And on top of the said gurneys, there are bodies.

"Are those…" Natasha prods at him.

"The Winter Soldiers," Steve agrees and moves forward. "Why are they here?"

The Winter Soldiers are all strapped on gurneys, bound down by belts around their legs and waists. They're all dead, long dead, the bullet holes Zemo left behind still visible on their foreheads. They're all but frozen solid in the frigid corridor – but there's something strange about them.

For one, most of them have blood around the bullet wounds. It's frozen but when it hadn't been it had bled upwards – into their hair.

They spend moment checking the bodies over – Natasha is the one who spots it. "Here," she points, and Steve leans in to see. A pin prick on the Winter Soldier's neck, a puncture wound from a needle. As Steve is examining it, Natasha tests the gurney – and suddenly it springs up, lifting the dead man's feet up, lifting him into a steep upside down angle.

"What the hell?" Steve mutters.

All the winter soldiers have the puncture wounds. Natasha has a frown on her forehead like she knows something but when Steve arches his eyebrows, she shakes her head. "I have a theory, but… it doesn't make sense. Might not be relevant."

"Right," Steve says. "Well, when you feel like sharing with me."

They move on – and then hit something of a jack pot. There is a room not far, which has signs of occupation. There are cups and buckets there with water frozen solid in the bottom, a device which Natasha cautiously suggests might've been used for heating – the computers have been twiddled with.

"I think he spend some time here," Natasha says, poking at the makeshift heating device. "Makes sense – it's a small room, enclosed, with beds with actual mattresses. It's probably best you can find in this place."

"You think Tony's the one who worked on the soldiers?" Steve asks.

"Well, it doesn't look like anyone else's been here – if there had been, they would've just carted the corpses off with them," Natasha points out and then stops, aiming her light at a bucket. Her eyes widen, and Steve leans in to look.

It's filled nearly to the mid point with red ice.

"Is that…" Steve says and trails away.

"Blood," Natasha agrees, crouching down. She picks up a plastic tube from the floor, turning it in her gloved fingers and then frowning at the bucket. "About five litres of it."

"From… the Winter Soldiers?" Steve asks, confused. "Why?"

Natasha shakes her head. "I don't know yet," she admits slowly and stands up. "But he did _something_ here. And I doubt it was just to pass the time."

Steve frowns, looking around, looking at the last gurney in the hospital room. Had Tony stayed there, had he slept there? "Where is he now, though?"

Natasha swings her light across the computers, and the cups. It rests, for a moment, on a bag of what looks like IV solution that's sitting on the table – also frozen solid. Then she turns the light back to the door way. "Let's keep going," she says with a troubled look on her face.

So they keep going. Past empty rooms and frozen corridors until, finally, they're at the bottom of the silo. Grimacing, Steve peers up at it. They'd done a number on the place during their fight – he had forgotten half of the damage they'd done. There's catwalks above them completely trashed, the walls have been blasted through – and of course, the silo door hangs heavy and immovable above them. Tony had blown the hinges off, after all.

"Steve," Natasha says, quiet, aiming her flashlight steadily at one spot.

Steve turns, and sees the gleam of familiar red and gold metal, scattered across the floor. Iron Man is laid out on the floor in pieces, each more broken and frayed than the other – some of them are completely unrecognizable. Gauntlets and boots are set aside, in various states of disrepair, but the various plates and gears Steve has no hope of recognizing.

He does recognise the chest plate, though.

He also recognises the cut running horizontal across the chest, over the shattered arc reactor, nearly cutting the thing in half.

Steve inhales and exhales. So, Tony hadn't been able to fly off after all – hadn't been able to repair the armour and just… get out. He'd tried, judging by the looks of it, tried a lot of things probably. The helmet has all but been dismantled, Tony had definitely tried to get it to working with little success. He'd tried. He'd failed. How long had it taken him?

"Steve," Natasha says again, and it's then Steve realises she's not even looking at the armour, she's looking completely in different direction. He opens his mouth to tell her, because maybe she hadn't even noticed it - and so catches him completely by surprise. He almost drops his own flashlight as it hits on a face, only managing to keep his grip by sheer luck. His light flickers and he aims it up at the face more steadily.

 _Tony_.

He's sitting inside one of the chambers, behind dirty glass with frost crawling all over it. Wearing only the Iron Man under suit, he has frost on his hair, on his eyelashes, touching his beard – making it grey. He's resting his hands on the arm rests of the chair and his head is held high, his chin level with the ground, his eyes shut. He's frowning – and he isn't moving.

Steve's throat works for a moment silently and the realisation that Tony is _frozen_ comes slowly and sluggishly. Frozen, like Bucky – cryogenically.

"He's…" Steve says, his mind tripping over the idea. Not dead, he thinks. Not dead, not dead, they'd left him, but Tony hadn't _died_ , he _wasn't dead_.

"You clever son of a bitch," Natasha murmurs, walking closer with her flash light beam aimed steadily at Tony's face. "He froze himself. Couldn't figure out a way out, and there's probably no supplies here, so… he bought himself and his rescue all the time in the world."

Steve swallows. Not dead, not dead, his mind keeps circling around it. Not dead. He hadn't killed Tony Stark. Except… "T'Challa – they told me that normal people can't do this, something about water in human body, and how freeing makes it expand," Steve says, glancing at her. "It kills baseline humans."

"Oh, so that's why," Natasha says thoughtfully and nods. "Those HYDRA soldiers – he drained their blood. I guess it was… for this," she nods at Tony. "To give himself a chance."

"He…" Steve trails off and looks at Tony again. "He transfused their blood into himself."

Natasha says nothing for a moment, and for a long while they just look up at Tony's frozen face. He looks… not quite peaceful or relaxed but at rest. His face is pale – it makes the cuts and bruises _still there_ stick out even more than they had, last time Steve had seen them. They look fresh.

They _are_ fresh. Tony is still bruised and battered from the battle that Steve had recovered from months ago. And yet Tony looks… he looks stately, is the word. He looks like he's sitting on a throne, rather than being trapped inside a glass tube, frozen solid.

It takes Steve a while to realise that his shield is sitting at Tony's feet, frozen with him. It twists something in his chest and for a moment he has to look sharply down, his heart pounding.

Natasha makes a contemplative sound.

"What?" Steve asks, scraping for distraction.

She reaches forward to pluck a note from the cryo chamber's glass. She reads it quickly and then shakes her head, handing it over to Steve. "That bucket," she says.

Tony hadn't just transfused the blood into himself – he'd completely replaced his own with that of the Winter Soldiers. Steve reads the lines couple more time, just to make sure, and then looks up. He's not as good at the science as Tony, as Bruce – or the many scientists at Wakanda who had been looking into it for Bucky… but even he knows that sort of thing would have side effects.

"This just got more complicated," Steve says dully. "Didn't it?"

"A lot more complicated, like it wasn't complicated enough already," Natasha sighs and aims her light at Tony again. "Can't do anything by halves, can you?"

Tony, of course, doesn't answer.

* * *

 

"Well," Clint's voice comes through the jet's speakers. "That wasn't a déjà vu I was expecting."

"Are you sure he's alive?" T'Challa's voice asks, much calmer.

"As far as we can tell, yeah," Steve answers, running a hand over his hair and pushing it back before pulling his hat back on. "But there's no way to tell how he's doing. That stuff about normal people not handing cryogenics, it's kind of hard to tell if that's happening – the equipment here isn't exactly at Wakanda's level. The best we can tell is that he is still alive."

There's a moment of silence, shock and confusion and maybe dismay. They none of them had expected to find Tony here _alive_. Either dead or not at all – but not alive. It throws a very interesting and very complicated wrench into the works. Now that the shocking, gut wrenching relief isn't everything, Steve can almost feel it – how much this is going to change things.

"How is he alive, though?" Sam's voice in the speakers. "You need to be super human to go under cryogenic suspended animation, and as far as I know Tony Stark is baseline human."

"He… juiced himself up," Natasha says. "He had five dead super soldiers, remember? He drained their blood and replaced his own with it. No telling what sort of effect it had before or during his freezing, but… he's not dead."

"…could you repeat that because it kind of sounds like Tony Fucking Stark juiced himself up with HYDRA blood," Clint says flatly.

"Tony Mother Fucking Stark juiced himself up with HYDRA blood," Natasha says, just as flatly. "From five different donors. There's a bucket of his own blood here, frozen – pretty sure he put in way more than he took out, too."

"That… could have side effects," T'Challa says, his voice contemplative.

"Yeah, bad ones," Steve agrees and sits down on the co-pilot's seat. These days he's kind of started to think that maybe he was a complete freak accident – or maybe because there was so much in him for the serum to fix, it couldn't really mess him up all that much. Every single attempt since – barring Bucky, but he got messed up in other ways so he didn't really count – had gone bad.

It is especially bad now, with the so called "Combat Enhancers" going around in the black market.

"From what James told us, the Winter Soldiers here exhibited violence," Natasha says slowly. "They became volatile and uncontrollable – started lashing out."

Steve cuts her a glance and she arches her eyebrows and shrugs.

"Those were trained combatants," T'Challa muses. "An elite squad of HYDRA assassins. That's a sort of background that can only be made worse with superhuman abilities."

"And Stark's background isn't?" Clint asks sharply. "How did it go again – ah. He's an alcoholic egocentric self-obsessed arrogant _asshole_ –"

"That's quite enough, thank you," T'Challa says mildly, and Clint snaps silent. "What kind of state is Mr. Stark in?"

"He's…  well, still pretty beat from the fight we had," Steve says awkwardly, rubbing a hand over his neck and looking away from the receiver. "I don't think there's any serious injuries though."

"Frostbite is very possible. We're also looking at mild malnourishment," Natasha adds. "According to the note he left behind, he went to sleep about two days after the fight – so he was at least two days with nothing but water before he frosted himself. Probably longer."

"He left a note?" T'Challa asks.

"Yeah, right I got it here," Steve says and fishes the piece of paper out. When he'd read it down in the base he'd tried to avoid noticing how unsteadily it's been written. He's seen Tony's hand before and it was never the cleanest, but this is like he wrote it drunk, words stretching and letters trailing too big on the small note.

Written under duress, he thinks, with a shaking hand.

He reads it out loud.

There's a moment of silence following it.

"Damn, Tony," Sam mutters.

"He went the extra mile to avoid rejection," Natasha agrees.

"Ugh," Clint says. "HYDRA blood. That's so creepy."

"He is very right about not being defrosted outside proper hospital," T'Challa says. "Regardless of _how_ the blood of the Winter Soldiers is interacting with his physiology, he will need to be monitored carefully during the defrosting process. However… Malibu I think is not an option."

There's another silence, this one darker.

"Do we have the necessary stuff on the jet to transport him, safely, without interfering with the cryogenic freezing?" Steve asks.

"Mind you – he's in seated position," Natasha asks. "And it's probably not safe trying to rearrange him when he's frosted."

"No, that's certainly going to cause damage," T'Challa answers and is quiet for a moment. "Stand by, I will confer with Mr. Barnes' doctors. Chances are we will need to send another plane with the right equipment."

* * *

 

Steve watches with his stomach churning almost painfully as the Wakandan scientists slowly open Tony's cryo chamber. There is a hiss of escaping air and then the glass door gives away and there is nothing blurring their vision of the frozen man.

There is more light now, Steve and Natasha had rigged up few spot lights to make the room a bit easier to see. Under their light Tony doesn't just look pale – he looks blue. The frost in his hair, beard, eye lashes and eyebrows make him look older and now Steve can see the frost over his vividly red bruises and cuts – it's pink there.

"How you holding up?" Sam asks, standing by his side. He'd piloted the plane to get there – T'Challa's gentle machination.

"Well, you know," Steve says. "We spent months thinking he ran away from his troubles and responsibilities and then died parts unknown for reasons unknown – now turns out, it was just us. We just left him here to die, and never realised it."

Sam arches an eyebrow at that. "He didn't die, though."

Steve swallows. The scientists, all wearing padded white parkas, are leaning into the chamber now, examining it from the inside. There's a moment of discussion between them before they, in unison, grab hold of the legs of Tony's chair and lift him, chair an all, out of the chamber.

He looks less regal now. He looks a bit like a doll, actually.

Steve looks down. If Tony wasn't so damn smart… he would have died.

"Hey," Sam says. "T'Challa didn't realise either – _I_ didn't realise and I was the one who told him where to find you. It's not exactly just your fault."

"You think spreading the blame makes me less responsible, makes any of us less responsible?" Steve asks, glancing at him. "We left him here, and then we spend months happily blaming him for everything that went wrong since, while he was stuck here, frozen and as good as dead."

"Well, when you put it that way," Sam says and folds his arms, looking at him. He's frowning, probably feeling no small piece of guilt himself.

"I punched my shield through his armour," Steve says and looks down at his hands. From the corner of his vision he can see the shield, still scratched and scorch marked, as they lift it out of the cryo chamber.  "All I was thinking is that I had to disable him, that it was the only way to stop the fight – I destroyed the arc reactor, left him with a dead armour. I didn't even think –"

"Hmm," Sam says. "And I'm the one who told him to come alone. So he went alone, told no one he did, he even had FRIDAY delete the info after he was out her range."

Steve shakes his head at that, squeezes his hands into fists. Tony is lifted on a special made stretcher thing, chair and all, and as they watch the Wakandans pitch a sort of high-tech tent around him, with the sides made of something that looks a lot like sheer fabric, but isn't. It encloses Tony in a see-through box.

It looks a bit like he's been put inside a display case.

There's a faintest sound of electricity, and ripple runs through the fabric, sparks of light tracing across it in angular jagged patterns. Moment later, one of the scientists announces, "It's stable, no blip in vitals. We have viable cryogenic stasis."

"Let's get him on the plane, then."

Steve swallows, watching the Wakandans do _something_ to the stretcher. It lifts up couple of inches off the floor, by itself and the Wakandans turn to direct it towards the way out. Slowly, Tony Stark is taken away.

"Well," Natasha says, coming towards them from behind. "I got what I could out of the databases here, not that there's much. Mostly medical files."

"Better than nothing," Sam says, looking her way while Steve looks over his shoulder

Behind her, the five dead Winter Soldiers are also being taken out and up to the planes, though with them the Wakandans were using normal stretchers. Steve knows the Wakandans know better than to do anything… stupid with them. Wakanda has it's ways around the whole superhuman issue, after all, and T'Challa doesn't exactly love the idea of the super serum.

Still, there is a reason why none of them had ever talked about the location of the Siberian HYDRA facility, and the sight of the enhanced super soldiers being taken away rouses that old paranoia. There'd been a time, back when the Enhancers had first hit the streets, that Steve had seriously suspected Tony was behind it – that Tony had dissected the soldiers here, created the pill, and lost control of the production.

He looks away and closes his eyes. He'd blamed Tony for lot of things over the past few months. Including man's own death.

Natasha lays a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. "All of this can be a good thing," she says almost gently. "If nothing else, Ross can't use Tony against you anymore."

Steve snorts. "Chances are he won't even need to," he says bleakly.

He can imagine what Tony will think, if he ever wakes up.

It's not pretty.


	2. Chapter 2

Sensation creeps in first. It's like light shining in the darkness, just a hint at first, then forming into shapes. Fingers, toes, his chest as he breathes in and out, his nose as air pushes and pulls through it. Then sound. Hum of electronics and distant murmur of voices.

Then he registers the temperature.

 _Warm_.

Tony opens his eyes. Above him there is a white ceiling, cream coloured stone. As he stares at it, he registers a sort of electronic _click_ and looks away from the ceiling, to a pin prick lens on the corner of the walls and ceiling – a camera, which had just zoomed in on him.

Not a normal hospital then.

Tony sits up. The ache of frostbite is gone, his fingers feel fine, so do his toes. His under suit is gone – instead he's wearing a white tunic and on his right wrist there is something tugging at his skin as he moves his hand – a sticker, glued inside his wrist. It has circuitry running through it. Looking to his left he sees the monitor it's connected to – it's tracking his heart beat, temperature, blood pressure, blood oxygen and even his perspiration, or at least those are the figures on the screen.

Tony peers at the sticker and he's just identified it as Wakandan technology, probably, when the door opens.

"Good morning," T'Challa says calmly and closes the door after himself.

Tony looks him over. The guy doesn't look older than the last time he'd seen it, so it probably hasn't been years. Still. "Your Highness – or is it Majesty, now?" Tony asks. His voice, surprisingly, is steady. Not even a bit parched. He doesn't feel hungry either. They must've fed and watered him, somehow.

Thank _god_.

"You can just call me T'Challa, if you wish," the King of Wakanda says.

"Your Majesty then," Tony says frowning. "How long?"

T'Challa doesn't even pretend to misunderstand him, "Six months and four days, or so," he says simply, with no beating around the bush. "It is December 14th today. You were retrieved from the Siberian facility five days ago – we took our time defrosting you, in order to avoid any potential damage. How are you feeling?"

Tony runs his thumb over the electronic monitor sticker. Half a year. A lot could happen in half a year. And, judging by all of this, he was in Wakanda of all places. That could be bad or worse but it didn't speak of anything good. Under any sort of normal circumstances it would be Pepper, greeting him now – or an actual doctor. That it's T'Challa, King of Wakanda and _Black Panther_ is… telling in all the worst ways.

Tony looks around them. The room isn't a prison – or at least it doesn't look like one. The door is wood and there is a window just few feet from Tony, with blue skies and hint of greenery in view. Of course, it could be bullet proof, and the door might not be wood on the other side.

T'Challa had been on their side – but T'Challa was also a bit of a wild card.

"Why am I here?" Tony asks, staring at the window. "I think I wrote something about Malibu in my little suicide note."

"Yes, well. Situation has… changed while you slept," T'Challa says and frowns slightly.

"Yeah, I figured," Tony agrees and turns to look at him. He can smell the man. He smells like metal, sweat, the non-scent of unscented soap. It's… bit weird. "Six months and four days," Tony repeats. The Accords would have been ratified by now, with or without the Avengers approval. Without him there, with Steve and most of the Avengers in jail or on run…

Tony runs a hand over his face, just to check. He can't feel the cuts or bruises, his face is clean. Thankfully, no one's touched his beard. Five days of defrosting, and his bruises are just gone? " _Right_ ," he says and then pushes the flimsy duvet back and swings his feet down. Neither his toes nor his fingers look frost bitten.

His _ass_ it's been just five days.

"Mr. Stark," T'Challa says, watching him with something like wariness, something like guilt. "I would like to extend a personal apology, if I may."

"For what?" Tony asks with a frown. "You weren't there."

"I was, actually," T'Challa admits. "I shadowed Steve Rogers and James Barnes when they took off after the incident at Flughafen Leipzig-Halle airport, and I followed them all the way to Siberia. I witnessed some of your fight at the HYDRA facility – and while you were fighting, I took Helmut Zemo under my custody."

Tony stares at him. "I never even saw you," he admits.

"I know," T'Challa agrees. "I did not want to be seen. And I am sorry – when your disappearance became public knowledge, it had been… some time and I failed to connect the events. We were all under the impression that you had gotten out of the facility and then decided to… lay low, as it were."

Tony looks away, at his wrist, at the sticker on his wrist. On the corner of his eye he can see the monitor tracking his vitals – his heart beat is going up.

He peels the sticker off, marvelling how thin and flexible it is.

Six months, before anyone had made the connection. Steve had known, Barnes had known and Sam Wilson had known – and apparently T'Challa. And it took six months before any of them did anything. And it'd been _some time_ before he was even declared missing. For a moment, Tony just breathes in and out, in… and out. "Okay," he says then and sets the sticker aside, on the bed covers. "Why exactly am I _here_?"

T'Challa hesitates, just for a split of a second. Then he clasps his hands together and meets his eyes levelly. "It took two months, before your disappearance was publicised. We suspect Secretary Ross had a hand in that – you were one of the major shakers behind the Sokovia Accords, after all, and so as long as no one knew you were missing, he still had you at his back."

Tony frowns at that, giving him a suspicious look. Really? And Ross had just… gotten that pass Pepper? Pepper and Rhodey and Vision. How the hell had he managed that?

T'Challa smiles, mirthless. "By the time the knowledge was publicised, we assumed you had gone missing at that time it broke news – not two months previous," he continues. "And I'm afraid… we didn't have much reason to look for you."

"Mmm," Tony answers, noncommittal. _We_ , T'Challa kept saying _we_. Who is _we_? The Avengers?

"Since then, the Sokovia Accords have been approved," T'Challa continues. "Only it was after several rewrites. The final form was… different from what you saw. The Lagos Incident, the Bombing of the Vienna International Centre, the incident at the airport… there were other, minor incident since that compounded the circumstances. The final form of the Sokovia Accords was far stricter than the one you originally signed."

Tony closes his eyes, wonders if T'Challa had seen any of the first drafts. The one he'd shown to the Avengers was something like the seventh – the ones before that had been a lot more severe. "Did they put the registration back in?" he asks, not sure how much he can trust any of this, but still morbidly curious.

"… a strong suggestion for Registration Acts was included," T'Challa says, frowning. "It was in the early drafts?"

"Yeah," Tony agrees and rubs at his neck. He had to pay king's ransom – the Raft – to get it removed. "Shit. Okay. Then what happened?"

"You were declared officially missing just before the signing of the Accords," T'Challa says. "Conveniently enough, since obviously you weren't actually there and couldn't sign the Accords anyway. The Accords were ratified, and 65 of the 113 Nations who signed the Accords instituted some level of registration for enhanced individuals. United States of America included."

"And that was four months ago," Tony says.

"Yes," T'Challa agrees.

"Right. Okay, _wonderful_ ," Tony says and takes a deep breath. Four months of extremely restrictive superhuman Registration, that's… totally not something that probably blew up in people's faces.. "Please tell me it's already been proven terrible horrible bad idea and taken down."

The look T'Challa gives him is almost pitying.

"Shit," Tony answers and runs a hand over his face. When he closes his eyes he can almost imagine he's still in Siberia. Shit he kind of _wishes_ he was still in Siberia. Months of work since Sokovia, gone to hell because he'd been taken out of the game by – Tony breathes. In and out. "That doesn't answer why I'm here," he then says.

T'Challa considers that for a moment, probably trying to figure out how to soften whatever blow's that coming. "Well, for one, only we knew of your whereabouts. As far as anyone outside Wakanda knows, you're dead."

So, that meant that Steve, Barnes and Wilson are all either dead or in Wakanda with him. Tony's not entirely sure which is worse. It would explain _we_ though.

"And?" he prods.

"And if you were taken by your own countrymen, I suspect you'd still be considered dead," T'Challa says frankly. "There are some… intricate politics going on with the Superhuman Registration Act in United States and… enhanced individuals have tendency of disappearing into the system."

Tony lowers his hand and looks up at him. T'Challa meets his eyes with a look that's in part apology and in part remorse. "You think Ross would – that Ross _could_ get rid of me?"

"Mr. Stark – Vision disappeared two months ago," T'Challa says and shakes his head. "I'm afraid there is no telling what Secretary Ross can do."

Tony frowns at that. The tone of it doesn't really brook argument, it's too factual – and T'Challa seems like trustworthy sort of guy. But it's his word against _zero evidence_ , and Tony is not quite as willing to trust people at their word anymore.

"I don't suppose," Tony says slowly. "You'd be willing to give me unlimited internet access to research all this shit by myself?" He doesn't really hold high hope for that, but hell, never hurts to ask.

T'Challa arches his eyebrows slightly and then smiles. "As the matter of the fact – yes, I am," he says, glancing backwards at the door. Like by some invisible signal – or by the promptness of people watching them through cameras – a man in a Wakandan suit steps in and hands a laptop to T'Challa before stepping out again.

Tony lift's an eyebrow as T'Challa turns to him. No way would that thing be unrestricted.

"Quite a lot of things happened during your… leave of absence," T'Challa says and sets the laptop on the feet of the bed. Tony follows his move, and frowns – the guy doesn't even try to hand it to him. "I hope your research is _thorough_ , Mr. Stark. There are things happening that go deep beyond the surface and they have tendency of slipping through the cracks."

"Right," Tony says slowly. "Thanks for the advice, your Majesty."

T'Challa smiles. "I suggest you start with the Accords," he says, nods his head, and leaves.

Tony glances after him, then at the folded laptop.

Then he grabs it and gets to work.

* * *

 

"Do you think he realises?" Sam asks, his voice a little tense as they watch on the monitor how Tony Stark's fingers work over the computer, flicking between news articles at speeds that border on super human.

"Hard to say," T'Challa answers, with his arms folded. Mr. Stark is going about his research with a sort of haphazard methodology that makes him wonder about the state of the man's mind. He's skipping forward and ahead in time – article from six months ago, four months ago, yesterday, and then back, skipping in time and subject, from super humans to politics to stock market without pause.

"I still don't think handing him unlimited access to the internet is the smartest idea," Clint comments from where he is idly swinging an arrow between his fingers. "There's a lot of damage he can do, with that."

"It will hardly help us later to try and restrict his access now," T'Challa says and glances back at him. "Imagine yourself in his shoes, with only the information served by your host to go on, and nothing else. Would you be keen on trusting them?"

Clint scoffs and Steve looks uncomfortable.

T'Challa shakes his head and looks back to the monitor. Mr. Stark's distrust had been palpable, as had been his wariness – the man is not an unaccustomed to finding himself in hostile situations, facing odds that were wildly against him. There is nothing more dangerous than a bright, combat capable individual backed into a corner, T'Challa knows, and he has no intention of turning Tony Stark of all people into a caged animal.

Frankly, he's not certain even his country could handle the ensuing fallout.

Still… it is still a little alarming that the man had read four hundred pages of incredibly dense political text of the ratified Sokovia Accords inside twenty minutes. Every now and then he had to pause to breathe – every now and then he closes his eyes and rubs at his forehead in ways that implied a headache – but he kept going, and unnerving speeds, accumulating information too fast to keep up.

And what he is reading is not very pleasing to him, judging by the tight, increasingly frustrated look about his face.

"What is he doing now?" Steve asks worriedly.

T'Challa looks up. Mr, Stark had left the news feeds behind as fast as he'd been consuming them – he is now writing onto a web page with a address of scrambled numbers and letters, good fifty characters long. "Hmm," T'Challa answers and then turns to another screen, one tracking the laptop. "Simple answer, he's hacking," he answers, shaking his head.

"I thought you gave him unlimited access," Natasha comments with a frown.

"I did," T'Challa agrees and taps a few keys. The computer spends a moment trying – but it cannot make heads or tails of the code Mr. Stark is writing. "From where we get to the complicated answer – he is breaking into a server that doesn't exist, using a programming language… that doesn't exist. It's rather remarkable."

"So… we don't know what he's doing," Clint says slowly.

"Hm," T'Challa agrees with a nod, just as the web page Mr. Stark is accessing sends him a packet – and he downloads it promptly and without hesitation. After that, the man leaves the browser entirely and uses… something else. A code screen – sending constant packets to a server that, again, does not exist.

Mr. Stark has a hidden online server which, apparently, works entirely on his private code. He wasn't even writing in any understandable symbols anymore – the text on the screen was as good as hieroglyphics now. Except T'Challa could actually  _read_ hieroglyphics.

"Should we stop him?" Sam asks with a frown.

"I'm inclined not to," T'Challa answers with a frown and leans back a little. It makes him slightly nervous to have hacker of Mr. Stark's level in Wakanda, so close to the state secrets – but the man doesn't seem to have any interest in them. What he's doing, and what he's after, it's far away and wide spread. And as good as gibberish to all of them.

He is curious about what Mr. Stark is doing, really, and what would come out on the other end of his research, though. It is obvious that whatever he had read in the Accords and the news had not been _good news_ to him, so in all likelihood he is after more in-depth knowledge. How he is going about getting, though, that is the question.

"We should go there and talk to him," Steve says impatiently after a moment of watching the rapid unintelligible code. "Explain things to him. Apologise."

"Once he is done confirming facts by himself, maybe. Right now I am perfectly satisfied leaving him to work it out on his own pace, by using his own means," T'Challa says with a shake of his head and glances at him. "And, pardon me, Steve, do you think he would want to see you now? As far as he is concerned, you both did your level best of beating each other out of commission only few days ago."

Steve folds his arms and looks away.

"The more information he gathers himself, the better," T'Challa explains calmly. "Let him find his footing. Once he's done… hopefully he will know the right thing to do."

"That being siding with us," Clint says and scoffs. "And when he doesn't?"

" _If_ he doesn't – that's his choice," T'Challa says and looks at him. "He is _not_ our prisoner, nor our indentured servant. He owes nothing to us."

"I beg to differ," Clint mutters.

"What about the serum? What are we going to do about that?" Sam asks, shaking his head and facing T'Challa. "It's obviously having an effect on him. I mean, his _face_."

Indeed, his face. T'Challa looks at the video footage and takes a breath. "So as long as he shows no inclination for violence or for causing damage," he says. "all we can do is wait."

"Pardon me, your Majesty, but there's a _lot_ we can do," Clint says pointedly.

T'Challa sighs and turns to look him at him, arching an eyebrow. He doesn't say anything – he doesn't think he needs to.

Clint grits his teeth and stops the arrow between his fingers. "You don't know him like we do," he mutters almost sullenly.

T'Challa shakes his head at that and glances at the others, most of whom look uncomfortable and worried. The idea of Tony Stark alone makes them uneasy – but super powered he actually _frightens_ them. And perhaps he can't blame them – he _doesn't_ know Mr. Stark like they do, he's only ever worked him once and it did not go well. The man does have a history of… mistakes.

But also of successes. And why no one can see that much longer, much more remarkable history of _victories_ , T'Challa isn't sure. It is a little tiring in any case.

Shaking his head, T'Challa turns back to the screen. Whatever Mr. Stark had done, whatever he'd accessed, it's now feeding data back to him – the screen is all but flashing with indecipherable code which Mr. Stark is reading rapidly, clicking almost non-stop to scroll down along the code. His eyes don't even move anymore as he reads – he takes the page in at single glance and then quickly skips down.

It is frightening, T'Challa can grant that much. Superior intelligence always is.

It might very well be something they desperately need, however.

On the screen Mr. Stark bends over the laptop for a moment, staring at a page full of code. Then he abruptly leans back and runs hands through his hair, looking away – at the window. His hands shake and his face is hard mask of aggravation – he's deeply agitated by whatever he's learned.

" _What the fuck_ ," Mr. Stark mutters, his voice coming through the speakers. " _What the actual_ fuck?"

"I think he's done," T'Challa comments.

"I think you're right," Natasha speaks up at last and gets up. "I'm going to talk to him."

She's out of the room before anyone can even try to come up with an objection. T'Challa glances after her and sighs. One of these days, he'll get a handle of this group, he muses morosely. One of these days.

* * *

 

Tony looks up from the offending laptop as the door opens – it not T'Challa. He's not entirely surprised to see Natasha Romanov at the door way.

"Hey there, Tony," she says, in that not-quite-there-hesitant way that's more fake than it's real, when she's putting up a front to make you feel all comfortable about her humanity.

Tony tilts his head, taking her in. She's dressed in what looks like Wakandan tech – still the black cat suit, but the fabric is… different. Looks flexible – might be bullet-proof. That's all sorts of interesting implication right there – the last Tony had seen her, she'd been working for government. The fact that she's here, dressed head to toe in Wakandan tech and with what seems to be going on… that pretty much makes her a fugitive.

Well that explains where Steve, Barton, Falcon and Barnes were, with Scarlet Witch and Vision being… missing in government care and all that.

Tony turns to the laptop, and writes a line of permissions. Then he closes the lid slowly and pushes the thing off his lap.  

"Are you going to say hi?" Natasha asks.

"Hi," Tony says and swings his feet to the floor. "Can you take me back to Siberia? I kind of want to climb back into a cryogenic chamber now and just skip ahead five, ten years. Actually make it thirty, I could do thirty. At thirty years we should be past singularity and the tech should be getting mighty interesting."

Natasha smiles, tight and uncomfortable. "You know, I don't think I'd mind trying that myself," she admits and comes leaves the door way. Tony watches her warily as she walks closer – but she's too cool for something as awkward as hugs. She just sits beside him with a sigh. "You all caught up now?"

"More or less – probably still missing key facts," Tony admits and looks up to the camera in the corner of the room. "Nat, what the _fuck_?" he asks.

"Lot of bad luck and bad calls, one after another," she says. "And I think it didn't help that there was no one on that side. I mean, Vision was there, but Vision is…" she makes a motion with her hand, "not human. So I don't think anyone really listened to him. Every time we did something, they found a way to spin it – and I guess we didn't make it exactly difficult for them. Then the Combat Enhancers, then actual super powered acts of terrorism… Lot of bad press which Ross knew how to use to his advantage."

Tony frowns at that and looks at his knees. His head his buzzing, aching. "Shit," he mutters and rubs at his forehead.

"How are you feeling?" Natasha asks, watching him warily.

"Eh," Tony answers and closes his eyes. "I figured there'd be side effects. I did not think headache was one of them. I guess that might be being frozen and all that. Brain not getting oxygen and whatnot."

She's quiet for a moment, watching him and then looking away. "You know, you just read the Accords inside twenty minutes."

"Nineteen and forty five seconds, but who's counting," Tony answers with a slow breath and looks at her. "That why you here, in case I go nuts on you?"

"You're already nuts," she says and nudges at his shoulder with hers. "I'm trying to be a friendly face."

"Points for effort I guess," Tony allows, wondering if she remembers how their last _friendly_ chat had gone down. "But I guess there's lot unfriendlier around here," he muses and looks up at the camera again. Just to be an ass, he waves his fingers at it.

Natasha watches him. "Sorry it took this long," she offers. "We didn't… realise."

"Yeah, whatever," Tony answers and gets up. "Moment of truth," he says and points his hand at the supposedly wooden door. "Can I walk out of this place, or will I be tackled by security?"

Black Widow eyes him searchingly and then smiles. She gets up. "Come on," she says. "I'll give you a tour. Wakanda's really nice this time of the year."

Behind them the laptop quietly turns itself off.

* * *

 

Pepper looks down as her phone lets out a soft ding. Setting the folder she'd been leafing through down, she picks it up and flicks her thumb over the screen, unlocking it with her thumb print. Only, there is no notification there, no new email or message, not even a notice of system update. There is nothing.

It takes her a moment to notice the new icon of interlocked orange arches and rings, an app she's never downloaded to her phone, sitting beside the other apps she uses on regular basis, right there, on the home screen.

For a moment, Pepper's blood runs cold.

Then her heart skips a beat as she recognises the shape. It's a only a vague resemblance, overly simplified – but she knows it, she knows the colour, knows the design. As she watches, the arches and rings spin slowly around the centre.

Pepper presses her thumb on it and then watches, breathless, as orange light flickers over the screen. The clock on the corner of the screen stops and the phone freezes.

Then there is a notification.

[Hello, Ms. Potts. Sir sends his regards.]

And for the first time in six months, Pepper can breathe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not very Steve positive, I'm afraid.

"How are you enjoying Birnin Zana, Mr. Stark?" T'Challa asks somewhere behind Tony.

"It's… fine. Very utopian," Tony answers vaguely, staring down at the city below. It kind of freaks him out to see a city that isn't bit of a concrete desert – it kind of looks a bit like someone build a city and then let a rainforest grow right into it. And it is very much a _city_ , a proper city, with sky scrapers and everything. It's very beautiful, but at the same time it's weirdly alien. Technology and nature in harmony.

It feels like he's woken up in a scifi novel. He loves it, but it kind of weirds him out too.

"That's… good," T'Challa says amusedly and comes to stand beside him.

"I'm not going to stay here, you know," Tony points out, glancing at him. "I'm _really_ not."

"No, I didn't think you would," T'Challa admits and looks him over. "Any time you wish, there is a plane waiting to take you anywhere you'd like."

Tony frowns a little at that. "Right," he says and folds his arms. He's still wearing the hospital get up, white tunic and white trousers. It makes him feel weirdly _airy_ between the King in full suit beside him, like maybe he's not real. Like it's a dream. "Why'd you bring me here then?"

"Natasha told you how you were found?"

"She obfuscated it at me, more like," Tony shrugs and makes a mental note of that, _Natasha_. So informal. "But I got the idea. She and Steve Rogers found me and got me out of Siberia. Brought me here because this is where they're based at. Why is that anyway?."

T'Challa shrug. "I have been harbouring those super humans and similarly minded people who have needed sanctuary during the tumultuous times following the ratification of the Accords," he explains. "That includes some people you know. James Barnes is here also."

Tony turns to face him with a frown. "I guessed," he says flatly. "But why are you telling me, your Majesty? Since you were there, you know what happened last time I saw the man."

The king gives him a look. "James Barnes is in cryogenically frozen," he says simply. "He has been for five months, after several trials that ended up in equally many failures and we failed to unravel his programming. He is waiting now for technology to advance enough so that we may free his mind of everything HYDRA installed."

Tony swallows and for a moment doesn't say anything. Something about the idea that he and Barnes had been the same for five months makes his stomach turn. "Again, why are you telling _me_ that?"

"Honesty," T'Challa says and shakes his head. "These past months I have gotten to know your team mates, and I have heard plenty about you – and from what I hear, honesty is a rare resource in your group."

"That's what happens when you start under the thumb of spy agency. Everybody ends up lying," Tony says and shakes his head. He turns to look outside, at the trees below them. They look ancient, the trees – nothing like the meticulously planned and cut and shaped trees you sometimes saw in urban areas. These are _old_ trees, knotted and crooked and massive. He thinks they might be fruit bearing. "They're not my group anymore, though."

"Regardless what happens now, deceit and lies of omission will not help anybody," T'Challa says and shakes his head. "And so, in spirit of honesty – I wish to form an alliance with you, before you go."

Tony frowns and turns to him. "Which one is this coming from; the sugar daddy of super heroes or king of Wakanda?"

T'Challa smiles. "It comes from the Black Panther," he says simply.

"So… little bit of both then," Tony surmises humourlessly.

T'Challa shrugs and looks him over. "Things did not go as we hoped with the Accords," he says. "I think you agree with me there. The others, they still believe that time and the right battle will fix this – that one day, the world shall need them so badly that it will be forced to change."

"They're waiting for a supervillain to unite the world behind them," Tony says. "That's… wonderful."

"It has worked before. Common enemies are great unifiers," T'Challa says with a shrug. "And perhaps, it will happen again. History speaks volumes of such incidents and the Avengers especially have a past of unification against common threats."

Tony scoffs and shakes his head. "That does sound familiar," he agrees quietly.

"It's not a bad stance for a group of heroes. In fact I suppose that is how most heroes are born," T'Challa muses and looks down at his city. "I, however, am a king of a nation. I do not and I cannot merely _wait_ for future enemies to force my hand. Do you know why I originally opposed the Avengers?"

Tony shrugs uneasily. He hadn't even known the guy had been _opposed_ to them, just that he'd supported the Accords. "Multitude of reasons, probably," he says. "We had a bad track record at that point."

"It was because of your name," T'Challa says plainly. " _Avengers_. By your very definition you were only ever a reactionary force, one motivated by a grievance. A vengeance is a terrible motivator for anything, but saving people, helping people? I could not see the merit. I still cannot."

Tony makes a face. "I thought you wanted to make an alliance, not… shit on everything we ever tried to do," he complains.

"I want you to understand my point of view," T'Challa explains. "And I want to understand yours."

"Okay, that's – that's wonderful I guess," Tony says with a shake of his head. "I'm not entirely sure what you want from me here, though – an apology? It's my understanding that Avengers died with – well, with _me_. Don't you have more important things to be worried about?"

"I do," T'Challa agrees and gives him a look. "And right now, you and what you will do next is the most important concern I have. And before you do anything, I hope to understand what kind of man you are, Mr. Stark. I would not force you to share, but… I am curious."

"Of course you are," Tony mutters and shakes his head. "Well, you're doing wonders for my ego and I gotta say, after six months of being forgotten in fucking Siberia, it's appreciated."

"You are a genius, a super hero, a billionaire, and you are reacting in strange ways to having unknown amount of super soldier serum in your physiology," T'Challa points out. "And it is having an affect, isn't it?"

Tony shrugs, noncommittal.

"You must understand why that might be worrying."

"Tch," Tony answers. "It'll probably fade. I mean…" he flexes a bicep half heartedly. "I'm definitely not getting super buff here."

"No. Your strengths lie elsewhere, don't they?" T'Challa points out, watching him with a sort of half amused seriousness that seemed to see right through his bullshit.

Tony lowers his arm and shrugs, looking away for a moment, thinking about it. "Makes you nervous too, huh?" he asks.

"No, it makes me optimistic," T'Challa admits easily. "Because _you_ … you gave birth to the Accords."

Tony closes his eyes at that. Okay, not what he'd been expecting but, okay. "Wasn't just me," he says tightly.

"You are the one that UN called upon after Sokovia, you are the one who met the accusations, and you are the one who dealt with them," T'Challa says. "And following that meeting, the writing of the Accords began. You knew it was going to happen – not only that, but you had a hand in writing them."

Tony breathes in and out. "Do the others know?" he asks.

"Does it matter?" T'Challa asks, arching his eyebrows.

Tony hesitates and then folds his arms. He feels naked all of sudden. Hell, he pretty much is. "It kind of feels like you're threatening me here, your Majesty," he says uneasily. "What do you want from me? An apology?"

T'Challa shakes his head slowly, staring at him intently. "You saw something in those Accords. So did I," he says. "And I _still do_."

There's a moment of silence while Tony processes that, thinks through it and around it. Then he looks outside again. "I bet that's a popular point of view with the Exvengers."

T'Challa just gives him a look, expectant and relentless.

Tony swallows. "Yes, fine, alright. Obviously I saw something in them," he says. "I saw the inevitable. The Accords were always going to happen, one form or another. Super humans were popping up all over the place, in New York alone there are something like dozen native super human individuals – it's same all over the world. Every year there's more, it's an exponential curve." He scoffs. "It's like reverse power vacuum – suddenly there's _too much_ power. We were in super power inflation bubble. It was always going to burst."

T'Challa frowns a little at that. "And so you thought oversight was necessary."

Tony shrugs. "We did more good than we did harm, always – but the fact to the matter is, we did harm too," he says and clenches his hands into fists before folding his arms. " _I_ did a lot of harm. I needed to be put in check."

The king nods slowly, thoughtfully. "I thought so too," he agrees.

They're quiet for a moment, staring at the city below them in contemplative silence, Tony all but hugging himself as he thinks back to the board meetings, the numerous rewrites – the successes, the failures, the disappointments. So many arguments over boardroom tables. So many nights of lost sleep.

"They were supposed to be a beginning of… something," Tony says quietly. "I don't know what, I couldn't see that far, but I thought, I hoped it would be something _good_ …" he trails off and shrugs. "Well, you know. Hell and good intentions and all that."

"You think you failed," T'Challa says, glancing at him.

"Obviously," Tony says with a scoff.

The king eyes him for a moment. "I don't think you failed, Mr. Stark," he says and Tony gives him a disbelieving look – the man _has_ seen the Accords as they are now, hasn't he? Apparently T'Challa can read the incredulity on his face because he smiles. "I think you didn't get to _finish_."

"Tch," Tony says, disbelieving, and then a little uncertain. T'Challa isn't kidding. He is the opposite of kidding. "Your Majesty…"

"The Accords will not go away now," T'Challa says. "One way or the other they are going to be part of society until they are no longer needed – and they _are_ needed right now. Problem is, as they are written now they are not helpful, they are oppressive and they discriminate. They are in desperate need of work – and I cannot do that alone."

Tony licks his lips, watching him cautiously. "So, that kind of partnership," he says slowly, tapping his fingers against his arm. "Alright, your Majesty, I'm going to have to see an actual written proposal here before I decide one way or the other, though, but…."

T'Challa smiles like, well, a panther. "Mr. Stark, I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

 

"And he seemed… fine?" Steve asks, trying very hard not to pace across the room.

"Headachy, but fine," Natasha answers with a shrug. "Bit confused but catching up fast. He's Tony, he'll be on top of the situation before the day ends."

"Oh wonderful," Clint says. "That's just what we need – Tony Stark on top of the situation."

Natasha arches an eyebrow at him and then looks at Steve. "I know you want to see him but T'Challa is right – he needs to find his footing first. Go see him now and you two will probably just end up fighting and that won't help anyone."

Steve grits his teeth but nods. Yeah, he can see it too – all too well. They'd end up shouting excuses at each other and then accusations and finally insults and they'd get no where. He wants to apologise and explain himself, but… he doubts now is the time.

"Did he show any signs of being… you know, enhanced, aside from the reading speed and whatnot?" Sam asks.

Natasha frowns a little at that. "He's not getting super strong, I don't think," she admits and folds her arms. "I couldn't see any signs of physical change, aside from the accelerated healing speed. Actually… he seems a bit thinner than before."

Steve looks up at that, and then away, to a near by monitor frozen between frames, showing Tony standing by a large window, staring at Birnin Zana below. "Might be his body burning through energy reserves," he comments. "That… happens. Fat deposits just _go_."

"Might be," Natasha agrees.

They're quiet for a moment, considering the image of Tony Stark on the screen.

"Okay, seriously, what are we going to do about him?" Clint asks finally, glancing at Steve. "Stark with fucking super human abilities. We should be making contingency plans before he starts messing shit up again."

"Clint," Steve says warningly

"What? I'm just being realistic. That's what's going to happen and we all know it – he's going to figure shit out as he does and then he'll go and mess shit up, _as he does_ , and we'll be forced to deal with the aftermath. Sokovia, ring a bell? Or how about the fucking _Accords_?"

Steve gives him a look and then turns away.

"The guy has the serum now," Clint says, looking at them all. "You think that isn't going to make things worse?"

"You know there is very real possibility that it's not our business," Sam muses. "Just a thought."

"The hell it isn't –"

"I mean," Sam says, looking at the screen again. "Avengers are long gone, and even if they were still around – the team split before Tony went into stasis. There's no team, and last time we did much anything together, it was fighting. Tony is –"

He trails off with a slight frown and turns to the window, listening.

Moment later the rest of them hear it, a distant rumble. Steve lifts his head slightly and then steps to the window, peering out. It sounds like…

It is. A distant speck at first, then a familiar gleam of metal, trailed by the streak of repulsor fire – Iron Man, coming in fast. It – he? – arches down from the sky and pauses sharply mid air, to hover above the city.

"Well," Steve says and frowns. It's a sight he hasn't seen in months, one he has and hasn't really missed. Somehow… he hadn't thought it would come this soon and yet there it is, an Iron Man armour. And not just a cheap knock off, but the _real thing_. But… where did it come from?

"How the _hell_?" Clint says.

"So – there were more armours," Sam says thoughtfully. "Even though Ross couldn't find any."

"Obviously," Natasha muses and then glances down as the Kimoyo card on her hip flashes. She lifts it. "It's all clear – Iron Man's been given permission to land," she says with an arched eyebrow, and moment later the Iron Man suit descends, disappearing out of view.

"This is bad," Clint says. "Stark's gonna grab that thing and he's going to be off – and then there's no telling what the hell he'll do. We should go there and –"

"And what?" Natasha asks. "Clap him in irons and throw him in a cell?"

Clint scowls. "He's going to make things worse. You know that!"

"Clint," she says flatly. "How much worse do you think things can _get_?"

"I don't know yet but remember that little eastern place, you know, _Sokovia_ –"

Steve closes his eyes for a moment and makes a decision. "I'm going to go see him," he says and turns to the door. "Alone," he adds firmly when everyone quickly straighten up with clear intention of following him.

"Steve," Natasha says sharply and Steve levels a glare at her. She searches his face for a moment and then shakes her head slowly "Whatever you do, whatever you say – don't make excuses."

Steve frowns at that but nods. "Got it," he says. "Thanks."

* * *

 

T'Challa leans back with his arms folded, watching Mr. Stark read through his proposals. Over the last few months, he's made several of them to the UN, to Secretary Ross, trying his best to mitigate the Accords, trying to have the harsher clauses and articles changed – mostly with little success.

Wakanda is powerful in it's own right – but it's isolationist history didn't make it very influential politically.

Mr. Stark leans back from the screen a little, frowning. Ten minutes, and he's done reading through what had taken T'Challa _months_ to write. "It's not half bad," he admits and turns to T'Challa. "And none of this went through?"

T'Challa shakes his head. "They were considered, of course, but Sokovia, Lagos, Saxony… The negative press super humans were getting outweighed the positive. People were too scared and it made them unwilling to consider any sort of leniency, I suppose."

Mr. Stark nods thoughtfully, running a hand over his beard. "You know it kind of makes sense that the Exvengers are waiting for a supervillain – it would force everyone's hand and it would make lot of the Accords' clauses complete moot. As the Accords are now, they neuter all super heroes. And that's when Registration Acts doesn't fucking _imprison_ them…"

"Hmm," T'Challa agrees with a nod. "The Accords turn governments against their super powered people. It's all but mongering for a war."

Stark taps the laptop's casing for a moment, deep in thought, and then looks his way when T'Challa's wrist chimes. Glancing his way, T'Challa pulls his sleeve back a little, revealing the bracelet.

A hologram opens above the back of his hand. Shuri's face appears on it.

" _There is an foreign flying vehicle approaching the city_ ," she informs in Wakandan with a scowl on her face. " _Judging by the energy signature, it is using Stark Industries arc reactor and repulsor technology_."

T'Challa arches his eyebrow at his sister and then looks up at Mr. Stark. "I believe your suit is here," he says flatly.

The man arches his eyebrows back at him. "Problem?" he ask almost mutinously.

"I would have preferred a warning before you invited an foreign flying vehicle into Wakandan airspace," T'Challa admits. "But the circumstances are a little awkward so I will allow it this once. Next time, we will shoot your suit out of the sky."

He runs a finger over the AV bead. " _Iron Man has permission to land_ ," he tells Shuri. " _Please direct it to the pad on top of the palace_."

" _I hope you know what you're doing_ ," she answers, and cuts communication abruptly.

Mr. Stark watches closely as T'Challa pulls sleeve over the bracelet. "How the hell did you put a hologram projector onto a _bead_? I couldn't even see a lens there, never mind enough space for a processor," he says in fascination. "Also, I might be drooling a little."

T'Challa smiles a little at that "Stark Industries technology is well on the way to catching up to Wakandan technology – I have no doubt you will figure it out in next five or so years."

"You absolute cock tease," Mr. Stark says, wistful.

T'Challa shakes his head and reaches for the laptop. Press of a button, and it spits out a memory card. He hands it over to Stark. "My work on the Accords. It also includes some research I have done on… specific individuals behind the current text," he explains. "Something for you to start with."

"Are you kicking me out now?" Mr. Stark asks, even as he accepts the card, flipping it between his fingers.

"Not yet, I hope," T'Challa answers and gives him a one over. "There are couple more things I'd like to cover first, which have little to do with the Accords. What we brought back from Siberia, for one."

"The Winter Soldiers," Stark says, frowning.

T'Challa nods. "We weren't sure how you were reacting to the cryogenic stasis or how well you'd recover from it – chances were we needed to synthesise more of the serum for you, or at least purify it from the remains of the HYDRA soldiers. It did not come to that," he assures Stark when the man straightens up in alarm. "But the HYDRA soldiers are now kept here, in Birnin Zana."

"And…what are you going to do with them?"

T'Challa considers him. Mr. Stark doesn't sound quite as suspicious and wary as he did before. "Your father produced that version of the serum, correct? With your permission, we would like to use deceased HYDRA soldiers in research, and study the serum," he admits. "Not because it produces super humans, mind you – but because may can cure many ailments. A weaker form of it could help millions."

Mr. Stark bites his lip, searching his face. "I'm going to need contracts, _legally binding_ contracts," he says. "And total access to the work you do on them."

"You will have it," T'Challa promises. "Another thing is that we brought the remains of your armour from Siberia as well. I promise you, we did not so much as scan it."

Mr. Stark makes a face. "You know, the scary thing is that I actually believe you," he mutters and runs a hand over his face. "It's so much scrap metal now. I bet you have state of the art utopian recycling thing for scrap metal."

T'Challa arches an eyebrow. "If you wish," he says obligingly. "Third thing – the vibranium alloy shield.

That gives the man a pause. "Yeah, that," he says slowly and gives him a look. "I've been wondering about that, actually. Did you build Steve a new shield?"

"We did," T'Challa agrees easily. "But the alloy used in the original version of the shield gives it some qualities we have not been able to produce. Pure vibranium is stronger – however it does not… bounce."

Stark arches his eyebrows at that. "Well now," he says with delight and grins. "Something Stark Industries has over Wakanda. I'll be damned."

"It's not exactly useful quality aside in this one very specific case," T'Challa points out.

"Still. Beat you at something. Our stuff is _bouncier_. I am going to take my victories where I can."

T'Challa allows mild smile. "I would like to propose a trade in spirit of our future… co-operation," he says then. "Equal amount of pure vibranium for the shield."

"Hmmm… tempting, but I don't know. It has sentimental value too. My dad build the thing. And it's a historically important artefact, you know. And it's _bouncy_ ," Stark says, smiling slyly. "Imagine I sold the shield in the black market – I'd get _mint_."

"More than for _pure_ vibranium?" T'Challa asks flatly. " _Honestly_."

Mr. Stark laughs. "Twelve pounds of pure vibranium," he says and shakes his head. "You really know a way to a guy's heart. You have a deal, your Majesty."

Satisfied, T'Challa holds out his hand and they shake on it. "I suppose you'd like to see your armour now?" the king offers.

"I'd like a change of clothes first – where's my under suit?" Mr. Stark asks, picking at his white tunic. "Because white is _really_ not my colour."

* * *

 

Tony is with T'Challa and all set to go by the time Steve finds him – he's left the hospital clothes behind and is wearing the Iron Man under suit again, dressed from neck to the tip of his toes in skin tight dark fabric. He looks…

"Tony?" Steve says carefully and both Tony and T'Challa turn to look at him. T'Challa doesn't look best pleased and Tony frowns. "You're ah… leaving already?"

For a moment Tony doesn't say anything and Steve almost winces – that really wasn't what he wanted to be the first thing he'd said after all this time. Eventually Tony does speak, and it's with a tone of voice Steve doesn't know. "Yeah, I got things to do, people to see, you know how it is," he says. "When you've been dead for a while, the work just piles up."

Steve doesn't know what to say to that. It's not an accusation – and yet it is too. He doesn't know how he's supposed to react to it.

"I think I shall leave you now," T'Challa says and hands something over to Tony – a dark, heavy looking container. "We designed it to attach to the back plate of your armour – you should be able to carry it without trouble."

"The… suit landed less than half an hour ago – your Majesty, did you _just_ make this?" Tony asks, looking between him and the container. "Any chance I could see your fabrication systems before I go?"

T'Challa smiles. "Perhaps another time," he says and nods at him. "I'll be looking forward to hearing from you again soon, Mr. Stark."

"It won't take long, you can bet on that," Tony says and then bows his head. T'Challa nods again, glances at Steve, and then turns on his heel, leaving Tony staring after him. Moment later, T'Challa is gone and they're alone.

"I think I might be little in love with that man," Tony admits, shaking his head in wonder.

"Everybody is a little," Steve agrees with a faint laugh.

Tony snorts and then looks at him. Steve meets his eyes nervously. "So," Tony says. "Long time no see, Steve."

"Yeah, kind of," Steve says and swallows. "I'm sorry," he blurts out.

Tony looks away, down at the container in his hands. Steve can see his fingers flex where they're visible around the cuff of the suit that reaches just the base of his knuckles – all healthy now, no sign of frostbite anywhere. Tony looks pretty damn healthy all over, actually. Steve tells himself he has no leg to stand on about being uneasy about it – and yet…

"Tony," Steve says, a bit more insistently. "I'm _sorry_."

"I got that, thanks," Tony says and looks up at him with a scowl. "It's… it's whatever. Ancient history," he says. "Though I'm curious about why you came after me _now_ at all? It's been six months for you and you though I was dead, or long gone. Why did you go to Siberia?"

Steve makes a face. He had been expecting accusations, questions – but not that one. "Why wouldn't we?" he asks confusedly. "Finally we figured out where you might be, or where we might find clues about what happened – of course we went after you."

Tony blinks at that, and lifts his head a bit. He looks confused. "Really?" he asks dubiously.

"Tony – we thought – for four months we thought you'd been killed in action in some Accords sanctioned secret operation in Middle East, or something," Steve explains quickly. "We didn't _know_ you'd been missing longer. If we'd known – " he stops there and swallows. No excuses, Natasha had said.

Tony arches an eyebrow at him. "Still could've just left it there," he points out. "I was as good as dead – why bother?"

"Of _course_ we'd bother, I –" Steve takes a breath and releases it slowly. Then he steps closer and Tony straightens his back, not quite in alarm but definitely taking a wider stance in preparation. Steve stops. "Even if you had been dead… I had to know," he says carefully.

"In case you left me for dead," Tony says flatly.

Steve makes a face at that and takes a calming breath. "Either way, I had to know."

For a while Tony doesn't say anything at all, just watches him. "Okay," he says then and shakes his head. "Fine. Is there anything else?"

"What do you mean, is there anything else?"

"I mean, do you want anything else?" Tony says, enunciating carefully. "What can I do for you, Captain? My ride's here and I don't have all day, you know."

Steve opens his mouth and then closes it. "The serum," he then says in desperation, because if he tries to apologise again it's probably going to end up in a fight.

"What about it?" Tony asks, frowning at him.

"Do you think you can handle it?"

That makes Tony's eyebrows lift up a bit incredulously. "Alright," he says slowly. "If that is all, I think I'll be leaving now, thanks."

Shit, Steve thinks in aggravation and runs a hand over his face. This isn't going right, none of this is going right. "Tony, I really am sorry – I just… I want to help," he says and he can hear the frustration in his own voice.

"So did I," Tony agrees flatly. "We saw how that went, didn't we? Might be better we just stop trying – obviously we're not very good at it."

"You really think that?" Steve asks, his voice going quiet. "That we should just… stop trying?"

Tony looks down at the thing in his hands again. He's quiet for a moment. "Might be best for everyone," he says finally. "We're not part of the same world, Steve, we don't talk the same language. We never have."

Steve frowns. "Just because you're a bit more tech savy – "

"That's not it," Tony says impatiently. "And you know it."

Steve searches his face for a moment and then takes a deep breath and releases it slowly. "We're never going to figure it out either if we don't try," he says finally. "I know – our goals are different, and so are the means we use to get there. It doesn't mean that just one of the two ways is the right way."

Tony shrugs. "Yeah, but neither way is going to work if we can't get past the point where we just argue about it," he says. "I don't want to fight you, Steve."

"I don't want to fight you either!" Steve snaps in frustration, because that's what they're doing, again, already, _fighting_. And it's the thing he'd told himself specifically _not to do_ right now. How is it that they always end up here?

Tony arches his eyebrows, like he's thinking it too.

"Damn it," Steve murmurs and runs a hand over his face. "So you're just going to give up? On us, the Avengers, everything?"

Tony shakes his head in amazement. "You know, if missing out on six months will ever teach me anything, it's that I don't have the fucking time for this," he says firmly. "And I think I'll be leaving now, if you don't mind."

Steve grits his teeth and bows his head as Tony hoists the container he's holding higher and turns to leave. "I am sorry," Steve murmurs bitterly. "I really am."

"So am I," Tony says as he goes. "Problem is, I don't think that actually changes anything. Goodbye, Steve."

* * *

 

It takes Tony the whole elevator ride up to the roof of T'Challa's palace to calm down. He's still breathing a little hard by the time he gets there, feeling shaky down to his core. His whole body is tingling with frustrated energy and it feels like his nerves themselves are prickling, super charged – though that might be just his imagination.

It doesn't matter – because there stands Iron Man, waiting for him.

"Sir," familiar, welcoming voice comes through the suit's speakers. "Allow me to tell you how good it is to see you again."

Tony smiles and walks over with quick strides. "It's good to be back," he says and quickly attaches T'Challa's little gift to the back plate of the armour – it attaches itself there with perfect little click that makes him shiver a bit. Damn, but everything Wakandan was just a little bit sexy.

"Okay," Tony says and spreads out his arms. "Come here and take me, you glorious thing, you."

The suit breaks open and envelops him into it's perfect, high-tech embrace and Tony relaxes into it, sighing with relief. "Welcome home, sir," JARVIS murmurs knowingly in his ear and Tony hums happily back at him.

Then they fly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck it. I'm just going to finish the fic here.


End file.
